This study gives a detailed analysis of the correspondence of Jana of Pernštejn stored in the family archive of the Dukes of Alba. Using this source, the author attempts to look in detail at the important position which the daughter of Vratislav of Pernštejn and his Spanish wife, Marie Manrique de Lara took on at the court of the widowed Empress Maria. Following her arrival in Spain at the latest, where she followed her Habsburg patron in 1581, Jana of Pernštejn became an important mediator between Empress Maria and her Central European clients. In this way, she managed to maintain Maria of Habsburg’s influence at Prague’s imperial court. Due to the trust the Empress placed in her, she was also given the opportunity to intervene in events at the Royal court in Madrid.
This paper analyses the life’s work of this Catholic priest and writer, in particular aiming to evoke his interventions and role in the Catholic clergy reform movement which, following the end of the First World War and establishment of an independent Czechoslovak Republic, demanded reform of the Church and its transformation into a national church community. Already at the turn of the 19th and 20th century, he was one of the critics of ultramonatism and Austro- Catholicism and changes in social and legal conditions put him amongst the protagonists of the Union of Czech Catholic Clergy. He set up its radical faction and in 1920 was one of the founders of the Czechoslovak Church. In the process of seeking out the church’s doctrinal focus, he promoted its orthodoxisation. The study places his efforts within a wider context and besides the introduction and conclusion evokes this in three differently-focused sections – in a biography, in a summary of his efforts in Czech literature and in his operation in the Church sphere.
This study evaluates the life and work of Count Zikmund Václav Halka-Ledóchowski (1863–1944) in the context of his biographical background. This consisted of a prominent Catholic Polish noble lineage Lédochovski from the father’s side and the Czech-Austrian noble line of Zessner-Spitzenberg from the mother’s side. He left his hometown of Uherské Hradiště to studying at the theological institute of the Society of Jesus in Tirolean Innsbruck (1884–1887). After his ordination, he became a member of the Society of Jesus (1887–1902). He worked in Styrian Lavantalle, Bohosudov and Prague. He left the order in 1902 and became a canon, first in Kroměříž (1906–1908) and then in Olomouc (1908–1932). He then worked as a prelate and between the years 1930–1932 provost of the canonry. He was extremely active in various associations, press and charities at all of these stations. The life work of Count Halka-Ledóchowski involved the establishment and administration of the Auspice for the Young in Prague (1903–1944), a community which consisted of desperate young people and guys from poor families, based on the social work of Abbé Ségur, Don Bosco and Baron Bethun.
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